


no one sees

by orphan_account



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drug Use, Gen, dubiously modern, i hope you can dig that, it's really more of a 'platonic ships pass in the parisian night' relationship, oblique references to death, trigger warnings for violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 08:18:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eponine smiles through cracked teeth and swallows, swallows grief and hysteria and presciption pills, smiles like her face will break in two, like she’ll die if she doesn’t, and knows how to pick what she doesn’t have and what belongs to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no one sees

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tinmiss1939](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinmiss1939/gifts).



The streets of Paris house thousands of rats, wolves, children, devils.

Eponine smiles through cracked teeth and swallows, swallows grief and hysteria and presciption pills, smiles like her face will break in two, like she’ll die if she doesn’t, and knows how to pick what she doesn’t have and what belongs to her.

No one sees a girl slipping between shadows in alleys, dancing through the shadows under her eyes, bleeding from her nailbeds and bruises blossoming like roses on her shoulders, stomach empty and head spilling over. No one sees her take their wallet, bag, wristwatch, sees her walk out of shoeshops with new feet, department stores with a new outfit, sees her twist her ankle in her sparkling new heels and smile at the pain.

Eponine holds knives to the throats of anyone who crosses her, wears lipstick like warpaint and high heels when she feels like screaming, never looks both ways crossing the street but always checks alleyways at midnight, prowls the streets for targets, hits the bullseye every time because she can’t afford to miss, sleeps with a few and loves even fewer.

No one sees the girl with sharp eyes and sharper words fall in love with a city, a boy, a fight (more falling than love), sees her slide her eyes across an aisle and know what to take, practiced eyes and steady hands.

No one sees the boy with sharp eyes and sharper words fall in love with a city, a fight (more love than falling), sees him cross a street to catch a falling star. Sees him sweep his eyes across a square and pick the most defensible position, the perfect place to hide an arsenal.

Enjolras holds truth to the throat of the unbelieving, hides rhetoric in rhyme and laughter and a look that shows darkness, never looks for trouble but always finds it finding him, sleeps with no one and loves everyone he does, prowls the world for knowledge and hits the jackpot every time because he doesn't know how to miss, he'll have to learn someday but not _to_ day.

No one sees a boy weaving between darkness and light at the speed of the latter, a boy who'd shoot any man in the head for disobeying him but feel tears welling up for the future lost, the future latent in the people, the future no one can see but anyone could guess wrong. No one sees him shatter through life gathering followers, disciples, apostles for the holy fight to save his only country, the country he claims.

Enjolras never smiles, but he always smiles, feels his lips curl upwards when he thinks of the future, the future he will never see but always imagine, wrong.

The streets of Paris house thousands of children, devils, angels, wolves.

Eponine and Enjolras smile, smile, smile, never feel the stones beneath their feet cut their soles, souls, always feel them inching their way into them day by slow day, smile through the pain and don't smile through it, move across a city that wears them down, cuts pieces of them away and sends them to family to say 'we will never return your child whole' because Paris cannot abide a citizen leaving.

No one sees a boy and girl running perpendicular through the streets of a city lost to everyone, running so close to crashing together, an explosion of heat and light and sound, but the day that happened was to happen in a future not hindered by war or poverty or hope, hope for new beginnings but not old endings, fresh middles. 

Enjolras and Eponine hold truth up to the light and see the flaws, the cracks, the faults in logic held by so many others, know the perfect way to shatter it for maximum pain but the difference is that Enjolras will hurt them but Eponine wants to hurt them, see the pain flicker in their eyes before she feels their heartbeat falter, the difference is that Enjolras can cause pain and Eponine loves to cause pain. The difference is that Eponine sees the world and hates it and Enjolras sees the world and wants it.

No one sees two people locked in a city that loves them but never understands them, a city that cannot show them the way but can guide them forward.

No one sees a city locked in its own downfall, two people trapped but never trying to escape. Two people fixed to their course in life, too short and long enough.

Paris smiles, smiles down on the people they hold, the love that can blossom, the hatred that blooms. Paris knows how to smile, smiles constantly, shines the sun and brings the rain, grows a city of people to nourish the soil, and two people nourish it with blood, both choosing it for other people, Enjolras for all people and Eponine for one. One person can change the course of history. The butterfly flaps frail wings, and walls crumble. Walls crumble, cities fall, government overturns. Enjolras is happy. Eponine doesn't feel a thing.

No one sees two people meet, speak, know one another. No one sees them start to run parallel, still going opposite ways but, sometimes, meeting halfway. Compromise tastes sweet like honey, bitter like cyanide, poisoning the water supply of a city step by considered step. A delicious way to die, some would say. Two people poison a city with a meeting, strengthen it by moving ahead.

Paris hides secrets in alleyways, brings their favourites close to their heart, never gives a second chance but always offers a third one, lets their people decide for themselves what route to take and gives fewer obstacles for truer routes.

The streets of Paris house thousands of people. Two of them, for their faults, are trapped in a city that loves them, cannot let them go, and they may not want to leave but by the day they are buried there, they may come to regret it.

**Author's Note:**

> this really isn't my ship, so i think i've erred on the 'platonic but with an interesting relationship' side. sorry about that :)


End file.
